


Infinite Potential

by AMidnightDreary



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Banter, Bittersweet, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Frigga (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Ghost Tony Stark, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Hopeful Ending, Human Loki (Marvel), Humor, Implied/Referenced Murder, Insomnia, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki Gets a Hug (Marvel), Lonely Loki (Marvel), M/M, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Protective Tony Stark, Roommates, Sad, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28773870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMidnightDreary/pseuds/AMidnightDreary
Summary: When Loki gets thrown out of his parents' home, he moves to an apartment on his own. What he doesn't know is that he will have a roommate who is a little... peculiar.
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Comments: 65
Kudos: 251





	Infinite Potential

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for ages oh my god you have no idea. I hope it's not as messy as I think it is. Enjoy!

_“Truly, life is wasted on the living, Nobody Owens. For one of us is too foolish to live, and it is not I.”_

Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

**1994**

He climbed up the ladder and into the attic, letting out a sigh of both relief and exhaustion. Below him, the old lady asked if he needed anything; the only thing he needed was to be alone.

"No, thank you," he called down to her. "I'll be fine. I'll pull up the ladder, okay?"

She agreed and he dropped his bag. Soon after the hatch was closed, and he finally took a look around the place he would stay in for the next few weeks at least. The attic looked like someone had once planned to rent it out and then forgotten all about it. It was dusty and not at all comfortable, but it would do.

He carried his duffel over to the old bed and pulled out the small bag in which he kept his money. He hid both the money and the disc in one of the many boxes and then slipped out of his shoes before he let himself fall on the saggy mattress.

_I'll be fine._

**2018**

The apartment was a downgrade.

It was tiny, just two cramped rooms plus the bathroom, and the ceilings were too low. The windows were small and screamed bloody murder every time you tried to open them. Every single panel in the wooden flooring creaked when you stepped on it, and the pseudo-baroque wallpaper that had the color of withering lilac was dirty and torn in several spots. The furniture the old owner, a lady who had died at the proud age of ninety-eight, had left behind looked like it was at least two centuries old. Judging by the state of the apartment, said lady had never done any dusting. It smelled like a musty basement where things had been left to rot for too long. 

So, yes, for someone who had grown up in a mansion in the best part of town, it was definitely a downgrade.

For Loki, it was a safe haven.

He dropped his two bags in the middle of the living room and sat down on the dusty old sofa, sinking into the cushions so far that it wasn't very comfortable anymore. Two bags. Well, he had his laptop, too, so that actually made three bags. He took it off and placed it on the sofa next to him. It was odd that everything he owned fit in just three bags. 

That wasn't right, of course. He had more stuff. He just hadn't been able to take it with him. Many of his books were still sitting on the shelves at home - 

No.

This was home now, wasn't it? This small, rundown apartment on the top floor of an equally rundown building that he had found by sole accident after wandering through the streets for two entire days. _His_ apartment, now. The dead lady's great-grandnephew, who now owned the house, probably still couldn't believe that anybody wanted to live here. But he hadn't asked any questions, and he would leave Loki alone as long as he paid the rent on time. And fine, the latter could be a problem, but he was too exhausted to worry about it right now.

He clenched his teeth and bent down to take off his shoes. A shower - he _desperately_ needed a shower, and after that he would crawl into the old bed next door that hopefully wouldn't break when he lied down in it and sleep, and sleep, and sleep.

The water in the shower needed two whole minutes to warm up, but that was fine.

~

When he woke up around noon the next day, he needed some time to realize where he was. He rolled onto his back in the creaking bed, which had thankfully not broken, and stared at the ceiling for a while. Since he had practically - and involuntarily - dropped out of college, at least he had the time to fix this place. He had to get rid of that wallpaper.

Loki flung his feet out of bed and ran a hand through his messy hair. He couldn't allow himself to think too much. If he started to think too much, everything would get much, much worse, and the situation was already bad to begin with. What he had to do was this: fix this place, find a job, survive. As far as he was concerned, that was a spectacular plan.

Loki stood up and dressed, pulling his clothes out of one of his bags. He also looked for his phone and plucked it in to charge; it had run out of energy yesterday morning already. He left it on the nightstand and then went to brush his teeth, realizing too late that he didn't even have a toothbrush. Frustrated, he took another shower to feel at least somewhat clean again, and then returned to the bed to switch on his phone.

To absolutely nobody's surprise, he had more than a dozen messages and mixed calls. Most of them were from Thor, a few from Frigga. Loki ignored them for now, in favor of making a list with things he needed - basic supplies, food, new bedsheets. Paint for the walls and everything he needed to put it on the walls. When he was done with the list, he finally took a look at Thor's messages.

_Take some time to cool off and then come back, okay?_

_Loki?_

_Just tell me you're alright and I'll leave you alone, promise._

_Loki, come on._

_Where are you?_

_Loki??_

Loki frowned and placed his phone upside down on the nightstand. A few seconds ticked by, then he took his phone and opened the chat window again.

_I'm fine. I found a place where I can stay. I'm not coming back._

Just seconds later, his phone rang.

"What do you mean, you're not coming back?" was the first thing Thor said, sounding exactly like the dumbfounded, disappointed puppy he was.

Loki rolled his eyes. "What do you think it means?"

"Loki," Thor said, "look, I know that could have gone better, but - he didn't mean what he said, I'm sure. You can - "

"Oh, we both know that he meant every word," Loki said, standing up. "I'm done fighting with him."

"That's not like you."

"It's not?"

"No. I already thought you were planning something."

"What should I be planning?" In the living room, Loki slipped into his shoes and grabbed his jacket. "I'm certain Frigga's heart is already broken. I hardly need to make it worse."

Thor didn't miss Loki's snide tone. "She's worried sick."

"Oh, is she?"

"Loki -"

"I need to go," Loki said, tired of this. "Tell her I'm fine. I -"

"Wait," Thor said quickly. "Wait, Loki, where are you? Can I -"

"No."

"Are you sure you'll be fine? Are you with a friend or something?"

"Of course. I am with one of my countless friends, whom I love dearly and unconditionally, and who love me just as much." 

"So you're not with a friend."

Loki sighs, because sighing is easier than strangling his brother through the telephone line. "I rented an apartment."

The silence sounded very disbelieving. After a moment Thor said, "You what?"

"I do think you heard me. And I -” He cut himself off and looked up at the ceiling, frowning.

“Loki? Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Loki answered absently as he made his way to the bedroom to take a look at the empty and unmade bed. He could have sworn that he’d heard a bed creak just then, but then again the sound had come from somewhere above him, not from the bedroom. “I just think I heard something.”

“Where is that apartment you rented?”

“That is none of your business, dear brother.”

“I won’t tell mum.”

Loki closed the bedroom door and turned again to leave the apartment. “Oh, you definitely will.”

“Why don’t you come home?” Thor asked, and his sad tone was almost enough to make Loki consider.

But only almost.

“I’m going to hang up now, Thor."

“Loki -”

Loki ended the call and let his phone slide into his jacket. He didn’t doubt that Thor would call him again, but Loki was very set on ignoring that for now. He needed to make his new apartment inhabitable, after all.

~

Loki needed an entire week. He tore down layer after layer of wallpaper until the walls were bare, and he had to take the bus to the nearest paper container five times to get rid of all the trash. He then painted the walls, during which he got green and gray paint all over himself, and the ceilings. He spent at least two days cleaning. He wiped the floor, killed about six dozen dust bunnies and released just as many spiders into the wild, he cleaned the windows and did his best to make the furniture look a little less old and worn. There were also a few repairs to be done - nothing major, just the creaking windows that needed to be oiled and a few cracks in the walls, or the hatch that led up to the small attic above the apartment and wouldn’t open no matter how hard Loki pulled at it. He quickly gave up on trying to repair that one. Instead he went out to buy new curtains and bedsheets and a blanket for the sofa and also two new books for no other reason than nonexistent impulse control, and then he was poor. 

But that was fine. At least the place didn’t look like it belonged to a hundred year old cat lady anymore. Well, the furniture was still very old fashioned, but Loki didn’t hate it and even if he had, he couldn’t afford buying anything new.

After that first week, he lay in his bed and planned to stay there for quite a while. His entire body ached and he was exhausted, but sleep still didn’t come easily. Without his permission his thoughts kept returning to the fight he’d had with his father _(not his father)_ and also to his mother, who had done nothing at all _(as always)._ It looked like they weren’t trying to find him anymore. Even Thor had stopped calling after two days.

It wasn’t like Loki was not used to being alone. He’d always felt alone. But he had spent the entire last week distracting himself from the fact that he had actually been thrown out of his home, and this time for good. Odin had been very clearly on this - Loki wasn’t welcome there anymore. And Frigga hadn’t stopped him from leaving.

Loki sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying his best to ignore the sudden, but not unexpected wave of _hurt_ that surged up in him. He cursed inwardly and got out of bed, because he knew that he wouldn’t fall asleep anytime soon. Just as he left the bedroom to get a glass of water, he stopped.

Steps.

He heard steps. The groaning of the wooden floor boards was unmistakable. It sent a cold shiver down Loki’s spine, and for a moment he couldn’t move. He’d left the door open, so he could stare right into the dark living room from where he stood. Even though he couldn’t see anything, he had the sudden, overwhelming, awful feeling that he was not _alone._

His hands twitched by his sides. He could hear his own heartbeat loud and clear in his ears. The only weapon that came to his mind was one of the knives in the small kitchen nook in the living room, but to grab that he would need to pass the intruder. That was not an option, he needed to face them without the advantage of a weapon. That wasn’t necessarily a problem - Loki had always been somewhat scrawny, but that didn’t mean he was _weak._ The idiots at school had enjoyed using him as a punching bag only until they had learned that he was fast and stronger than he looked, and that he punched back. (They had also painfully learned that his older brother was captain of the rugby team, but still, Loki liked to take at least a bit of the credit.)

His mind raced, but his steps were sure and his hand steady as he entered the living room and reached for the light switch. He hadn’t heard any more steps; maybe the intruder had stopped in their tracks as well.

“If you are looking for money,” Loki said calmly, “I’m afraid I have to inform you that you have come to the wrong place.”

Nothing.

He switched on the light, and - still nothing. The living room was empty, and everything was exactly as he had left it before he’d gone to bed. Frowning, Loki went to take a look at the windows, but they seemed untouched. How would anyone reach the third floor windows without anything to hold on to, anyway? He also examined the door, but there was no sign of someone breaking it open, either. His keys were exactly where he had put them, in the bowl on the small side-table right next to the door. He took them and locked the door.

He was too tired. That had to be it. Not enough sleep and too much sadness made people insane.

~

Loki found a job as a waiter in a small café right around the corner, and he hated it. He hated his colleague, who was just as mean as she was pretty, and he hated the patrons, who seemed to think that the whole world revolved around them and was simultaneously against them just because Loki couldn’t give them any chocolate chip blueberry muffins when the café didn’t sell any chocolate chip blueberry muffins at the moment. 

Loki hated it, but he needed the money, because without money he would have to ask his not-parents or his not-brother for help, and he would rather die than do that. Spite was a powerful motivation.

It was fine when he had the evening shift. Amora wasn’t there and barely any customers came in to annoy him. He could sit behind the counter and steal one (or three) of the brownies that didn’t taste half as good as they looked, and read.

When he returned to his apartment late in the evening, he cooked something quick for dinner and ate in front of his laptop. Thankfully, he still had access to Thor’s Netflix account.

He was half through with the episode when the power went out.

Loki sat still for a short while, surprised and immediately annoyed. The light of the laptop screen illuminated the room just enough that he could see. He stopped the video and fumbled around on the sofa, searching for his phone. When he found it, he switched on the flashlight and got up to make his way to the breaker box that was outside in the hallway. It looked like the fuse had tripped, but when he switched it on again and returned to his apartment, the power was still gone.

“Lovely,” Loki muttered, and immediately his head snapped around, staring into the darkness to his left.

He’d heard something. Felt something, actually - a breeze or a whisper, he wasn’t sure. He shivered, and closed the window.

~

“Oh,” James Rhodes said, and as far as Loki was concerned, that was not a very satisfying answer. 

“Yes,” he said coolly. “Quite. So, if you could send someone to take a look at it, I would be eternally grateful.”

“Yeah, I -” Rhodes paused. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

Loki raised his brows, even though his landlord couldn’t see him. “Excuse me? The power has been out for two days now.”

“Yes, I got your email.”

“Really? Wonderful. Thank you for neither replying nor doing as I so politely asked, then.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but -” Rhodes took a breath. “The power will be back soon, promise. It’s not the first time this happened.”

“I see,” Loki replied politely. “And you don’t think that is a sign that you should, oh, I don’t know - send someone to take a look at it?”

Rhodes didn’t seem at all bothered by Loki’s annoyed tone. If anything, he seemed amused. “No, it’ll be fine. And, hey - if the power isn’t back this evening, I’ll send someone tomorrow. Okay?”

“Tomorrow, then,” Loki said, and hung up.

The power was back twenty minutes later.

~

This time, the steps came from upstairs. Loki had woken up because of them, and now he’d been listening to someone walk around right over his head for about five minutes already. Five minutes were a very long time when you were scared to death.

Loki didn’t scare easily. Not anymore. But right now he _was_ scared, and he wasn't even sure why. Maybe because the only way to get to the attic led through his living room and up that hatch he hadn't been able to open, or maybe because it was two am and everything sounded spooky at two am. Maybe because he wasn't sure whether he was imagining this or not.

He stretched and turned on the lamp on the nightstand. It had one of those strings you could pull at, and when he withdrew his hand the string hit the lamp, making a metallic noise that was too loud in the otherwise silent apartment.

Yes, silent. The steps had stopped. Loki stood up, anyway, and sneaked into the living room. He switched on the light and looked up at the ceiling, listening closely for any more suspicious noises. The hatch that led up to the attic was closed. Loki hadn’t thought much about it until now, but now that he’d heard the steps for a second time, he did feel a bit… uneasy. Maybe someone was up there, and they had somehow blocked the hatch so that it couldn’t be opened from below. And maybe that someone had been in Loki’s living room just a few nights ago. 

He was probably just being paranoid. Maybe there were rats up there. Or a racoon. Still, the thought that it might _not_ be an animal made Loki grit his teeth and decide that enough was enough. He would just -

A noise disrupted the silence, loud enough that Loki flinched and stumbled, heart pounding in his chest as if it wanted to jump right out of his throat. A shot. That had been - yes, that had been a _shot._

And the sound had come from the attic.

Loki knew that he should call the police, but his hands were trembling, and for a long time he couldn’t move at all. Above him, there was only silence. Eventually, he forced himself to move; he grabbed a chair and placed it right under the hatch, and then fetched the rod that was meant to be used to open the lid. Loki climbed onto the chair and tried once more to open the hatch, but it didn’t move an inch, so Loki pulled at it hard again and again until he almost lost his balance. Realizing that it was fruitless, he cursed and slammed the rod against the ceiling, hoping that would at least annoy whoever was up there at least a little bit.

He was still cursing when he heard the steps again. The wood above Loki’s head creaked, and Loki almost bit his tongue. He held his breath, eyes widening, and listened as someone took two, three steps until they seemed to stand right next to the closed hatch. And, see, Loki wasn’t _stupid,_ so even if the shot hadn’t been telling enough, he could tell the difference between the scuttling of a racoon and the steps of a person. And that up there?

Definitely a person.

“Alright,” Loki called out, voice shaking just slightly. “That’s it. I’m going to call the police, and you -”

In that exact second, the chair was swept away from under his feet, and Loki fell and hit his head on the sofa table.

~

Half an hour later, he sat next to the chair in the living room, pressing an improvised cold pack - a package of frozen vegetables - against the back of his head. He was scowling at the chair, which was, to his utmost surprise, completely intact.

He’d thought one of the chair legs must have broken or something. But, no, the chair was as whole and sturdy as it had always been, and that was strange. Because Loki hadn’t just fallen off the chair for no reason. He hadn’t slipped or lost his balance, either; he was sure of that. He’d stood there, calm and stable, and the chair had just… moved.

Chairs, in general, did not move on their own.

~

In the morning, Loki walked to the nearest store and bought a crowbar. When he returned to the apartment, he threw his jacket on the sofa and studied the chair for a moment. He hadn’t even touched it since last night, but he could have _sworn_ that it had been moved an inch or two to the left. Which wasn’t possible, so Loki was just imagining it.

Probably.

He set one foot on the chair and put some weight on it, almost expecting the chair to give way beneath him at once. It didn’t, and after another moment Loki let his other foot join the first. Tired and annoyed, he glared at the hatch as if that alone could convince it to open. He hadn’t slept at all since the incident last night, and he was determined to put an end to this today. If there was someone - or something - up there, he wanted to know, and he wanted to know it sooner rather than later.

He still didn't manage to open the hatch, not even with the crowbar.

In the end, he had to get the hammer.

See, Loki was not an openly aggressive person. When he was pissed, he usually smiled and planned his revenge in silence. But now he was pissed _and_ tired and maybe, just maybe, also a little scared.

And slamming the hammer into the ceiling as hard as he could felt very good.

The hatch was just made of very old wood, so it broke very quickly. There wasn’t even a ladder, which was a little odd. Loki was making a mess in his freshly renovated living room, but he didn't really care about that, because soon he could poke his head through the hatch, bracing himself on the floor of the attic.

It was very dark up there. Very dark and very dusty. Loki was about to take out his phone to use the flashlight when he heard someone walk right behind him, approaching him. Loki immediately turned around to tell them to get out of his damned attic, but he couldn't see anyone. There _wasn't anyone there._

And then he heard the voice.

_“I'm sorry about your head.”_

It was just a whisper that wouldn't have been audible if it hadn't been so close to his ear, but Loki still fell off the chair again. This time it didn’t have anything to do with the chair itself, though; Loki simply flinched so hard that he lost his balance. He immediately scrambled back up to his feet, ignoring both his sore backside and his rapidly beating heart, and grabbed the hammer from where he’d dropped it on the floor. Now he didn’t just look into the attic, instead he hoisted himself up and climbed through the hatch. He switched on the flashlight of his phone and looked around, keeping a firm grip on the hammer, and he saw -

Nothing.

Well, nothing except the kind of old and forgotten stuff you’d expect to see in an attic. There were different pieces of furniture - a single bed and mattress, a closet, two broken book shelves and a few chairs that were stacked over each other - and lots and lots of boxes. Loki could see an ironing board, a floor lamp with a broken shade, a tiny tube TV that seemed to be at least a century old. Also books and clothes and picture frames and here and there some toys, like a battered football and what looked like the remains of a car racing track. 

No rats. No racoon. And, most importantly, nobody who had been shot, either.

There was a small window, but Loki needed five attempts to get it to open even an inch, and it was too small for someone to climb out of, anyway. Well, except maybe for a four year old, but Loki doubted that a four year old could climb up the entire façade of the building.

But if nobody was here, whose voice had he heard?

He looked at the bed. There was indeed a mattress, even sheets and a blanket. It wasn’t tidy - it looked like someone had gotten out of bed in a hurry, or like they just hadn’t bothered to tidy it up. Something peeked out from beneath the bed, and Loki crouched and tugged at it. It was a traveling bag, the zipper wasn’t even closed. In it were clothes - three pairs of jeans and some t-shirts, two hoodies, all of it looking like it belonged to a man. A young man, judging by the ridiculous motives on the t-shirts. 

Frowning, Loki illuminated the space below the bed, where he found a pair of shoes - sneakers, not very old - and a few bottles, only some of them empty. Cheap alcohol, maybe from the liquor store around the corner. They were covered in dust.

Loki pointed the flashlight at the room, looking around again. And this time, something on the floor caught his eye - a big, dark stain on the wood, not far away from the bed.

Loki could guess what that was, and he didn’t like the thought one bit.

~

“I have a question about the attic,” Loki said in lieu of a greeting, his phone pressed between his cheek and his shoulder while he cleaned up the mess he’d made when he had used the hammer earlier.

“Oh,” James Rhodes said. He didn’t sound very surprised.

“Who lived up there?”

Rhodes hesitated. “My aunt mostly just used it as a storage room. Nobody set a foot up there in years.”

“Well,” Loki said. “I was there last night, and what I found really surprised me a bit.”

“Oh,” Rhodes said again.

“Perhaps I should have worded my question differently. Who _died_ up there?”

“Do you want to move out?” Rhodes asked.

Surprised, Loki stopped cleaning and took his phone in hand again. “I’m sorry?”

“I rented the apartment to a nice lady before you, you know,” Rhodes said. “She wanted to move out again after just a week.”

Loki frowned. “Why?”

“I think you know why.”

Loki thought about the steps he’d heard. The sound of a creaking bed that seemed to come from the attic. The blackout. The chair incident. The _voice._

He had to suppress a shudder, but he still shot a glare at the ceiling. “I doubt that _nice lady_ spent as much money and effort on making this place inhabitable. I won’t move out now.”

“Okay,” Rhodes said easily. “That’s good. And you - you don’t have to be scared, you know. He won’t hurt you.”

“No? Why, thank you, now I feel much better. Also, if you have a way to communicate with _him,_ why don’t you tell him that I am going to become a very unpleasant roommate if he doesn’t stay quiet at night?”

Rhodes let out a laugh. “Shit. He would’ve liked you. Why don’t you tell him yourself, huh?”

A minute later, Loki had hung up and was now staring at the hole in the ceiling. He briefly wondered if he had actually just spoken to his landlord about a ghost that lived in the attic, and when he came to the conclusion that the answer was _yes,_ he decided that the world was a very, very weird place, and that he would not give up this easily.

~

The first thing he did after he was done cleaning up was to google the term _ghost._ Then he googled his address to see if he could find anything about odd deaths in the area, but there was nothing that fit. He also googled James Rhodes, but there wasn’t anything strange about him, either. He was a soldier who had studied at MIT and could look forward to a wonderful career. If you considered the career of a soldier wonderful, that was.

A ghost. Loki had never really thought about it, and now he wasn’t sure if he believed in it or not, but a part of him was insisting that he _shouldn’t_ believe in it.

Then again, he had always been the weird one, the misfit who did and said things just to be contrary. Why not believe in ghosts out of spite, too? Odin would disown him, anyway. Loki had every right to lose his mind a little. It was _his_ mind, after all.

So what Loki did was this: he closed his laptop, and then he placed the chair beneath the (now broken) hatch again. He climbed into the attic and sat down on the bed.

And then he had a nice and completely onesided chat with a ghost.

~

From there on, the nights were quiet. Loki still heard someone walk around in the attic now and then, but that was all. He slept like he did usually, which meant that he slept badly for reasons that didn't have anything to do with any possibly paranormal occurrences.

Everything was… well, rather boring. He didn't have much to do. Odin stayed true to his word and refused to continue paying for Loki's education, so Loki officially dropped out of law school. There would have been other options if he wanted to keep studying, surely, but well. Ever since he'd figured out that he would never be a real part of, let alone take over Odin's law firm, law had lost its appeal, anyway. He was very good at it, yes, and he enjoyed it to a degree, but actually he preferred making his own rules rather than sticking (or finding loopholes in) rules somebody else had made for him. So, no, he wasn't angry because he couldn't finish his studies, he was angry because of the _principle._ Angry, but not very surprised.

It would be fun to watch Thor run the firm into the ground, though.

Anyway, Loki needed a job. A _proper_ job. For now he would get by with the money he'd saved for a car and what little he got for working in the café, but that would only last a few months more, tops. He also didn't want to spend his whole life selling mediocre muffins and even more mediocre coffee. So he did a lot of research and wrote some applications, but it became clear very quickly that finding a well-paid job he liked without a fitting degree wasn't that easy.

"You know," he says one night, frowning at the screen of his laptop, "I'm reasonably sure that they won't even consider me. Do you think I should apply, anyway?"

The apartment stayed quiet.

"Very helpful," Loki drawled. "Thank you."

He sighed and started to change his application letter so that it fit to the job description. He wasn't entirely sure when he had started to talk to the ghost that presumably lived in his attic, but by now it was a habit he wouldn't get rid of in the foreseeable future. Although he was aware that he was just talking to himself and that he had probably imagined the entire ghost situation - an ongoing fever dream, maybe?-, he had just decided not to care because, well. He wasn't very fond of people, in general, and he most certainly did not want a living roommate, but it might be good for his sanity to talk to a humanoid being every once in a while. Socializing was important.

Or so his mother had told him a few times.

"This is tedious," he complained. "Maybe I should simply - oh, no. What -"

The laptop didn't react anymore. Not to anything Loki did, at least - it seemed to be reacting to _something,_ because several things were happening on the screen. A few windows popped up and then closed again, line after line of nonsensical letters was added to his word document, the screen was flickering madly. 

Loki all but threw the laptop onto the sofa table. He stared at it, his hands still in the air, heart beating much too quickly. This wasn't normal, was it?

Then, suddenly, a string of words that was not nonsensical at all appeared in the document.

Well, a string of one word, really.

_SORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRY_

Loki blinked, and the air he'd been holding left him in a rush. Alright. He was not hallucinating this, probably, and he didn't feel like he was having a fever dream.

"Well," he said, voice shaking just slightly, "being sorry doesn't fix my computer."

The screen went black. Then, very slowly, the laptop moved, turning a little to the right. Loki could only stare and listen; he heard how someone used the keyboard, could even _see_ the keys being hit. The screen lit up again, and then, one after the other, the windows who had popped up disappeared again. The word document was restored to its initial state as well, and then the laptop moved again until it was exactly where Loki had placed it earlier.

"I am not dreaming, am I?" Loki asked, flatly.

A few seconds, then there was the _click, click, click_ as someone added another word to the document:

_No._

This was insane. Absolutely, hopelessly, ridiculously insane. Loki stared at the laptop for a moment.

"You're real, then," he said finally.

Another word was written: _Yep._

"And you can hear me."

This time, there was a whole sentence. _What, did you think dead people are deaf?_

Loki's brows shot up all the way to his hairline. He was losing his mind. That had to be it. "I haven't met enough dead people to know what they are and aren't, to be honest."

He didn't get a reply. After a few minutes, he broke the silence. "Are you still there?"

There was a pause, then: _makes me tired_

Loki frowned. "This makes you tired? Communicating with me?"

No answer. Loki yanked his eyes away from the screen and looked around the room, but it was empty and, apart from the soft light of the lamp next to the sofa, dark. 

"Good night, then," Loki said finally. 

He placed the laptop on his lap again and finished writing his application, and all the while he felt like there was still someone watching him. He wasn't scared, though - a ghost that apologized for messing with Loki's laptop couldn't be that dangerous.

And besides, not being alone for a change was - well.

Nice.

~

Loki stared into the fridge with narrowed eyes. He had just come home from an exceptionally boring shift in the café and now he was exceptionally hungry, but sadly he did not have many options. It was the end of the month, and he needed to use his money very wisely if he wanted to get by until he got his hands on a better job. If such a thing existed at all.

"I should have stolen some muffins," he said, but he was already wrinkling his nose before he had finished speaking. "Then again, a diet that consists of muffins and bad tea is not very healthy."

_Click, click, click, click, click._

Loki looked past the door of the fridge so that he could see the screen. He'd placed the laptop on the kitchen counter. By now he carried it around with him whenever he changed places in the apartment, and he always kept a word document open. The ghost wasn't the chattiest roommate since long sentences were apparently exhausting, but he - given the clothes in the attic, Loki assumes the ghost was (had been?) a man - was fascinating, anyway. He also seemed to follow Loki around as well, because usually the answers came pretty quickly.

This time, he had written a single word. _Rice?_

Loki sighed. Yes, there was still rice in one of the cabinets; he'd forgotten about that. He closed the fridge, and just in that moment one of the cabinet doors opened slowly and quietly.

"Why, thank you,” Loki said. “I would not have managed to do that myself.”

More clicking. _Trying to be helpful here._

Loki bent down to take the half empty package of rice out of the cabinet. “Conjure up some money, then, that would be _very_ helpful.”

_I'm dead, not Harry Potter._

“Mh, I agree that you are more the Moaning Myrtle type.”

 _Rude,_ the ghost typed.

Loki smirked and began to cook the rest of the rice. "Perhaps I should start calling you Myrtle, hm? You haven't told me your name, after all."

The ghost didn't reply, at least not immediately. Later, when Loki carried his laptop to the sofa table, he saw that there were two new words that had been written while he had been busy cooking.

_I'm Tony._

Tony.

~

There were a lot of dead or missing people who were named Tony, as it turned out. Loki had never really paid attention to this sort of thing before, but online he found _hundreds_ of young men who’d gone missing and might or might not have died in an attic in a rundown house. There was no way to narrow it down; he simply didn’t know enough about the ghost. And when Loki tried to get more information out of his roommate, it always stayed eerily quiet for a day or two before the ghost gave him a sign to show that he was still there. Those signs were not much fun. Once, the ghost had thrown Loki’s shoe out of the window. Another time he had caused three blackouts in fifteen minutes.

So, Loki stopped asking the ghost and decided to ask the landlord instead.

It was evening, and he was alone in the café. Well, there was a patron sitting at a table at the window, but he looked like he was asleep. Or dead? Either way, not Loki’s business. He was scrolling through missing person reports on his phone without really reading anything, and eventually he closed the tab and called James Rhodes instead.

“Somehow,” Loki greeted him, “you have forgotten to inform me that there would be a roommate waiting for me when I moved into the apartment. I should demand a rent reduction.”

“Okay,” Rhodes said lightly. “Fine with me.”

Loki blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah, sure. I mean, you’re living with a ghost. And he was a bit annoying even before he was dead, so. That shit would get on everybody’s nerves.” He sounded amused more than anything else, at least until he added, “He’s not bothering you too much, is he?”

Loki ignored the question. “You knew him, then.”

“Yes, I did.” A pause. “We were friends.”

Loki swallowed. Alright. He was not insane, then; there really _was_ a ghost in his apartment. Well, in the attic above his apartment. Lovely. “What happened?”

“Look, I - I know you’re curious, and that’s fair, really. I’d be curious, too. But it really isn’t my story to tell, you know?”

“There is a ghost living in the attic above my apartment,” Loki repeated his thought, slowly. “I don’t care that it’s not your story to tell, I think I have every right to know -”

“You do,” Rhodes interrupted, and he sounded rather uncompromising. “I know you do _,_ but - you can ask him. Does he - I mean, do you talk?”

“With Tony?” Loki asked, keeping his tone sweet. “No. Not as such.”

Rhodes was quiet for a moment, apparently surprised. “He does like you, then.”

Loki wondered briefly if he should tell Rhodes about the incident with his shoe, but decided against it. “He hasn’t strangled me in my sleep yet, at least.”

“Well, that’s -”

“I tried to ask him, you know. He made it very clear that he doesn’t want to tell me the story, either.”

“We were friends,” Rhodes said again, his voice firm. “If he doesn’t want you to know, I won’t tell you.”

Fantastic.

~

Weeks passed. Everything stayed the same. Loki worked and he read his books, some of them for the second or third time, and with the rent reduction Rhodes had agreed to, getting by became a little easier. He even talked to Thor once or twice, only on the phone because he wanted to have the option to just hang up when the conversation became too annoying. Thor still tried to persuade him to “come back home”, but contrary to him, Loki knew that he didn't _have_ a home to come back to. The only things he had were a family he hadn’t been born into, had never fit into and did not want to return to, money problems, and a small apartment he shared with a ghost.

His entire situation was a giant welcome sign for misery.

Loki was used to misery, of course. He’d grown up with it. But still, as the time went on and summer came to its end, he started feeling miserable in a way that had nothing to do with having been thrown out of his home and spontaneously needing to stand on his own two feet, and everything to do with the fact that getting out of bed in the morning had been an _ordeal_ for the longest time. It wasn’t getting any easier now. Now and then, when he didn’t need to leave the apartment to work or stand in a grocery store and wonder what cereal he could afford, he spent whole days in bed. Drifting in and out of sleep, thoughts either strolling around slowly and sluggishly or crashing down on him, making him wish he was asleep. 

He tried to write sometimes. That had been easy once, and fun, but now every story in his head was stuck somewhere, and he didn’t know what to do with them anymore. That wasn’t an unfamiliar problem; when he’d been younger, he had regularly run into plot holes and stalemates as well, but back then that had just been a fence he’d been able to jump over, and now it was a brick wall as high as the Empire State Building. It shouldn’t be allowed to feel this old at twenty-two.

It never got worse than when he was on his way home from work. That was when it hit him, always. _Home._ That tiny apartment he shared with paranormal activity itself. It suited him right; he had never fit into that big, warm house anywhere. He did miss it, though, the warmth, even though it had been ages since it had been _real._ He’d adored his parents once, both of them, and when he concentrated he could even remember the warm and safe feeling that had come with spending time with his father, back when Odin hadn’t yet realized that Loki was the exact opposite of everything he wanted. The memories of Frigga were fresher, clearer, which only made them worse.

Loki had not spoken to her since Odin had thrown him out. He did not want to speak to her, because he knew she would just manage to make him feel bad for not at least calling her every few days. (Or every few hours.) And then she would try to convince him to come "home", and she would be better at that than Thor, and maybe Loki would even listen to her and stop by for a cup of tea or something, and then he would fight with Odin again and everyone would end up feeling worse than before.

No, thank you.

Loki was freezing when he entered the apartment, so the first thing he did was take a hot shower. After, he felt like going straight to bed and staying there for a few days, but before he could crawl under the blanket, the door to the living room was nudged open a bit further.

Loki glared at it. “What?”

He kept a notepad and a pen on his nightstand. It was an old habit, a leftover from when ideas and stories had come to him easily and at the most inappropriate times. He didn’t really use the notepad anymore, but he felt uneasy without having it nearby when he slept. And recently it had proved to be of use, because _Tony_ had started to use it. 

Loki could watch as the pen was lifted into the air by an invisible hand. He narrowed his eyes when he read Tony’s message. The lines were a little shaky, the handwriting quick and messy, but it was legible.

_Eat._

“I’m not hungry,” Loki replied.

Tony underlined the word two times.

“If I don’t, you won't let me sleep peacefully, will you?”

Tony’s only answer was a smiley. 

“You are a nuisance,” Loki told him, but since he knew that Tony could make it _very_ difficult to get a good night’s sleep, Loki gave in and made his way to the kitchen.

With a bowl of cereal in his hands, he made himself comfortable on the sofa, placing his laptop on the table so that he could at least watch something while he was forced to eat. He was still glaring - he didn’t know where Tony _was_ , exactly, so he just glared at different spots in the room and hoped that Tony would feel addressed. 

“Are you satisfied? I hope so. And if I hear a single suspicious noise tonight, I'm going to evict you.”

He didn't get an answer. The laptop was on the table, the screen lit and the tab with the word document always open, but Tony didn’t always manage to type a reply, for reasons Loki didn’t understand. He knew that the ghost was there, though; it was always a little colder when Tony was in the room. 

“I hope you have no wishes as to what to watch,” Loki murmured, scrolling through Netflix one handed while he balanced the bowl on his lap. “Because I would ignore them, anyway.”

Suddenly, the cursor went somewhere Loki had not wanted it to go, and he sighed and sat back, watching as the ghost slowly typed a few words into the search bar. 

_ur cranky when tired_

Loki narrowed his eyes. “Is that supposed to be a complete sentence? Does your condition keep you from using proper grammar?”

The sentence - if you could call it that - disappeared and was replaced by, _condition???_

“Well, yes. Death.”

 _Rude,_ Tony replied, still using the search bar.

Loki rolled his eyes and finally started to eat. “Don’t be offended. There really is no tactful way to talk about it.”

Instead of answering, the ghost searched for a movie.

“Oh, we are definitely not watching that,” Loki said, at once. “It’s -”

He stopped talking suddenly, because the screen of his phone that he’d put next to the laptop on the table lit up. He felt like his heart stopped beating when he saw who was calling. God, why now? Why _at all?_ His fingers twitched and he just stared for a moment, but then finally reached out and picked up the phone, without even really meaning to.

"Hello?"

"Loki, is that you?"

"Were you expecting someone else?"

“No,” Frigga said. “But I might have some difficulties recognizing your voice after all these weeks.”

“Oh, I see. You intend to make me feel guilty so I come back and apologize, is that it?”

His mother sighed. “No, Loki, I don’t expect you to apologize. I’m afraid that even wouldn’t fix anything anymore at this point.”

"Well, at least we are on the same page."

It was silent for a long time. "For what it's worth," Frigga said then, her voice much softer, "I _am_ sorry, sweetheart. For everything."

"I'm sure you are."

"Loki, please. I know your father made mistakes, that he said some things you don’t -”

“First of all, he's not my father. Secondly -"

"If he's not your father, then I am -"

"Exactly," Loki cut her off. "I see you get my point. Secondly, I am done talking about this."

She didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, she said, "Where are you, Loki? Thor refuses to say anything."

"He doesn't know."

"But -"

"He doesn't know because he wouldn't manage to keep his mouth shut, and then you would come here again and again, until I give in. And I am tired of you pretending you care when all you are trying to do is keep that image of your picture perfect family intact. I don't -" He pauses and takes a breath. "I don't want to argue. As I said, I'm done. Accept it."

"Are you getting by, at least?'

Loki almost had to laugh. God, had she listened to a single word he’d said? _Ever?_ “Well enough,” he said tiredly. “It doesn’t concern you.”

He could feel her disapproval through the phone and tried very hard not to care. Old habits die hard, though.

“Thanksgiving is next week,” Frigga told him, as if it was some kind of new information that would change his entire worldview.

“Yes, well,” Loki said. “I won’t be there.”

The call ended not much later. Loki tossed his phone away, not caring in the slightest where it landed, and rubbed his eyes. That had gone really great. Fantastic, actually. _Thanksgiving._ What had she thought, that he would show up with an apologetic smile and a bottle of wine, hoping they would take him in again? 

Yes, right.

"You know, I've always hated Thanksgiving."

Loki's gaze snapped up. His blood running cold, he stared at the spot next to him that had been absolutely empty just a few seconds before. But now someone was sitting right there, and absently, Loki wondered if he should jump up and get himself to safety.

He didn't move, though. He couldn't. He was too busy staring at the man, whose form seemed to shift and ripple as if moved by the soft breeze that came in through the open window. His feet were resting on the sofa table, his head on the backrest while he looked up at the ceiling, his expression somewhere between thoughtful and annoyed.

"I mean, really," the ghost continued, "does anyone _like_ Thanksgiving? Sure, there's lots of food, but that's literally the only good thing about it. What are you even supposed to be thankful for? The family drama? It's like -"

"Excuse me," Loki interrupted. "Are you -"

He stopped, because the man next to him had flinched so hard that he had just - 

_Disappeared._

Loki blinked. A second went by, then two, then five, and suddenly the man was back, although his form was flickering a little as though he was… glitching. He was also staring at Loki - big brown eyes that were filled with shock, and something that looked very much like hope.

"Don't tell me you heard what I said just now," he said, his voice shaking a little.

"I did," Loki said, flatly. "And I agree, but -"

"Oh my god. _Oh my god._ Okay, that's - I've been talking to you for _months_ and you never heard a thing! And you didn't see me, either, not even when I -"

"I can see you now," Loki cut him off, "and I can hear you, too, you don't have to shout at me."

"Sorry," the ghost said. "It's just, I haven't really spoken to anyone in years, you know? Anyway, I -" Suddenly, he grinned. "I'm Tony."

"Loki," he said, unable to do anything except stare at him blankly. 

"Yeah. I mean, I know."

"You're the ghost that lives in my attic," Loki said.

"Yep," Tony said. "I spend some time here too, though. The attic is really dusty, and my blood is still in the floor boards, that's not very cozy."

"I see," Loki replied.

"I'm sorry about -" The ghost paused. "You know. Your mum and everything."

"It's fine," Loki said. "I'm used to it."

"Yeah, I know."

They sat in silence for a very long while.

~

Tony was a short man. His hair was brown and messy, and his eyes had that absentminded look of someone who was constantly somewhere else with his thoughts, but when he snapped to attention, his gaze was sharp and clever. He always wore the same clothes - a Black Sabbath t-shirt and washed out pants, sneakers that looked like they had once been expensive, although they were now a fairly old model. His smiles were dazzling. 

He was handsome. The type of man that would have caught Loki's attention if they had met each other in a bar. Tony would probably have managed to _keep_ Loki's attention, too, because he was intelligent, sassy and charming. Tony was, to say it with one word, _interesting._

He had also died very young.

Loki forgot that sometimes. Because now that he could actually see Tony - not always, but often enough to get used to his crooked grins and excited hand gestures -, talking to him was much different than talking to a computer, or a notebook. Because, every time Tony showed up, still flickering slightly but already excitedly rambling about something, the thought that he actually _existed_ hit Loki like a freight train.

Tony existed. Yes, he was flickering, his body was more an image than anything else now, but still - it had had a heartbeat once. Blood had been running through those veins, he'd been _alive._ And even if all he was now was an echo, even if his body was see-through and shaky at times, that didn't make him any less… _there._ Right there, sitting on the kitchen counter - the very insistent echo of a vibrant man.

“Twenty-four years, that’s a really long time when you’re alone, you know. It was goddamn awful in the beginning, it took ages until I even figured that I could _do_ something else than just mope around - moving things, making noises, all that stuff.” A grin, lopsided and impish. “Sorry about that. I never meant to scare you, just... I can’t always control what happens. The chair, for example -”

“That was you?” 

“Yeah. I was freaking out. I mean, if someone you didn’t know tried to -”

Loki wanted to say something, but Tony started to flicker again, his gaze becoming unfocused, and then he was gone. Loki sighed and turned back to the stove to stir the soup. Since Tony had appeared four days ago, this had happened a few times. It reminded Loki of the old, crappy TV Rhodes’ aunt had left behind; Loki had used it exactly once and then never again, because the image had kept flickering and blurring, until finally there had been nothing but white noise and muddled pixels. Tony was like that sometimes. Within seconds, he would turn quiet and absent, his eyes big and empty, as if someone had pressed a button on a remote and frozen the image. Then he’d disappear, and after either minutes or hours -

“- no secret that ghosts are a bit territory. Isn’t that what all the ghost stories are about? It wasn’t anything personal, I was just scared you’d mess up my…” Tony stopped talking and looked at Loki, frowning.

Loki looked right back at him, leaning against the counter with an almost empty bowl of soup in his hand. Tony’s frown deepened. He was still sitting on the counter, as if he’d been there the whole time while Loki finished cooking. 

“Was I gone again?” Tony asked, hesitant.

“For about twenty minutes,” Loki said. “I’m afraid I didn’t quite get the middle part of what you were saying.”

Tony rubbed his neck, his expression thoughtful. Not for the first time, Loki wondered whether Tony could actually feel something there, the touch of his hand on his neck, or if the gesture was just some strange case of muscle memory. A human thing done by something that was human once and was now clinging to illusions.

“I was just apologizing,” Tony said finally, his tone still a little absent. “I guess. For that chair thing. And the blackouts. And for when I threw your shoe out of the window that one time.”

Loki watched him, pensive himself. He wondered if he would get used to this feeling eventually, to the unease sitting low in his belly, the goosebumps and all his instincts telling him that this was a fight or flight situation and not the time to eat pumpkin soup. He ate another spoonful and wondered when he had stopped being scared of death. Death as a concept, as an idea, made visible in a ghost. Every living being should be scared of that, should listen to their instincts when they told them to get away as soon as possible. Loki didn’t listen, though, because he wasn’t scared. Not really.

“You don’t like it when I go to the attic?” he asked, his tone even. He’d been up there only two times, but the image, the blood on the floor, had practically burned itself into his brain.

“It’s where I lived,” Tony said, and he was watching Loki, too. His smile returned, but only faintly, just a twitch of the corner of his mouth. “I don’t want it to change.”

“You did let me look around, though.”

“I felt bad,” Tony said. “You’d hurt your head.”

“My head is fine.” Loki put his bowl into the sink. “What is it like?”

“Hm?”

Loki looked at Tony, raising a brow. It didn’t take long until Tony understood. 

“Oh, you mean being dead?”

Tony’s dry tone made Loki smirk. He left the small kitchen nook and went to the sofa. He shivered slightly, and when he sat down, Tony was right next to him, his feet on the sofa table again. It always got colder in the room when Tony moved.

“Yes,” Loki said. “Being dead.”

Tony stayed quiet for so long that Loki already thought the ghost had disappeared again, but when Tony finally spoke, Loki realized that he’d just been thinking.

“It’s not as bad as you’d think,” Tony said, slowly. His eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Really. I mean, it’s weird. Most of the time I feel like I’m actually here, like I can -” He ran his hand over the sofa cushion, fingers fading just slightly. “Feel this. Though maybe that’s just my memory providing what it thinks it should feel like, I don’t know. But like this, I can choose what I’m doing. I can move things, talk - even make myself visible, apparently.” He paused. “It’s not always like this, though. Sometimes I get… stuck.”

“Stuck?”

Tony nodded slowly, still not looking at Loki. “I walk in circles upstairs, without wanting to. I say things without knowing why or to who, and I just can’t stop. It’s like a rush, a compulsion I can’t get rid of. I don’t even notice that it’s happening until it’s over.”

There was frustration in his voice, hidden under a light tone. Loki leaned his head back against the sofa, looking at Tony. He thought about the shot he had heard that one time, wondering whether that was also a part of _getting stuck._ “That sounds unpleasant.”

Tony huffed a laugh. “Yeah, you could say that. It’s gotten rare, though.” He just looked at the ceiling for a while, then he said, “And then, sometimes, I drift.”

“Drift.”

“Yeah. Sometimes I’m just not - here.” He shrugged lightly. “I don’t know where I go, or if I go anywhere at all. I’m just gone, and then I’m back again.”

“Like earlier?"

"No. No, that was just - I just forgot to switch myself on."

The description made Loki snort, and Tony grinned without looking at him.

"What? The term's appropriate."

"If you say so."

It didn’t sound like a particularly fun existence, but Loki supposed that there were worse ones. At least Tony didn’t have to struggle to pay rent. He kept looking at Tony, the line of his nose, the beard framing his mouth, immaculately trimmed. His goatee was probably the only really tidy thing about him, a contrast to his messy hair and rumpled clothes. He probably didn’t need to shave, so was this… his memory providing what it thought he should look like? _Handsome,_ Loki thought, again. It was a real shame.

“Twenty-four years, you said.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah. Keeping up with the date isn’t that easy, but your phone and laptop help. Josephine only had a three year old calendar hanging on the wall over there, and she never bought a new one. Everything’s gotten better since you moved in.”

Surprised, Loki arched his brows. He couldn’t remember if anyone had told him something similar. _Everything’s gotten better since you moved in._ It was a nice sentiment, but it still made him wary.

"Oh?" he said. "How so?"

Tony finally turned his head and looked at Loki, smiling slightly. "You're warm," he said. "Warmer than Josephine. Maybe because she'd gotten old and sick, or just… I don't know. You're warmer. Closer, somehow. It makes doing this easier."

"Talking to me doesn't make you tired anymore?"

Tony shrugs. "It's still difficult sometimes, but all in all, it's alright. I think I'm getting better. Practice, you know?"

“Practice,” Loki agreed absently.

Tony didn’t say anything, and Loki stayed quiet as well. They watched a series on Netflix, and while Tony flickered in and out of existence next to him, Loki thought that you could get used to pretty much everything.

~

Thanksgiving came and went. Christmas, too. Frigga didn’t call him again, and she didn’t look too sad on the picture Thor posted on Instagram, so Loki supposed that her picture perfect family was just fine without him there. He went to bed after thinking that, even though it was barely even two in the afternoon.

“You sleep too much.”

Loki sighed and reluctantly opened his eyes, finding that Tony was sitting right next to him on the bed, cross-legged. The color of the wall behind Tony shone through him, making him look a little green. Loki rolled his eyes; he didn’t have the energy to inform Tony that sitting on Loki’s bed was kind of a breach of boundaries. Loki wasn’t even sure _what_ boundaries; it wasn’t like ghosts had to care about things like social norms and other people in general. Lucky them.

“I’m tired,” Loki said.

“I know.”

“I want to be alone.”

Tony raised a brow, then he looked over his shoulder. He grabbed the notepad that was on the nightstand as always, and scribbled a word on the top page. Tony hadn’t had to do that in a while, and now he was just doing to be annoying. When he showed the notepad to Loki, his face was blank. He’d just written a single word. And a smiley.

_Bullshit :)_

Loki huffed and closed his eyes. If he’d known that ghosts were so _irritating,_ he would have gotten rid of Tony long ago. Well, he would have if he knew how. He didn’t know if getting rid of Tony was even possible. Tony himself wasn’t even able to leave the apartment; coming down from the apartment was already difficult on some days. Which was one of the reasons why sometimes, days passed between Tony’s appearances; sometimes he just couldn’t muster the energy to communicate. The other reason was that _drifting_ he had mentioned, because sometimes he just wasn’t there at all. Loki still didn’t really understand how the whole thing worked, but he was fine with accepting it as it was. He didn’t want to ask too many questions and annoy Tony into leaving. Loki had asked about how Tony had died exactly once since Tony had shown himself for the first time, and after that Tony hadn’t talked to Loki for a whole week.

“Why don’t you use this anymore?"

Loki opened one eye so that he could see what Tony was talking about. Oh. The ghost was still holding the notepad and flipping through the pages. Loki got glimpses of his own handwriting, messier than it usually was because he'd been in a hurry, eager to get the ideas out of his head before they escaped his grasp.

"Why should I?" Loki asked, but even though he just wanted to go back to sleep, he opened his other eye as well and looked at Tony, who chose to ignore Loki's question.

"This is pretty good," he said instead, a little distracted. "I mean, I don't understand half of it, but still."

Loki sighed and draped his forearm over his eyes. "Stories never make sense," he murmured. "Not when you first get the idea for them, at least."

"I didn't really enjoy reading," Tony said, thoughtful. "Well, I could read dozens of articles and dissertations in one night, but fiction? Just didn't have the patience for it, for - just sitting there and reading three hundred plus pages about people who don't exist. But yeah, I'd read this. You should start writing again."

It was odd that Tony tended to speak about himself in past tense, but Loki had never commented on it. He figured that it was just a case of an accurate and factual introspection, and that was a good thing, at least according to the therapist Frigga had sent him to when he'd been in high school. Then again, the therapist had also told him to write down some positive thoughts every day and had then been done with Loki and his troubles, not caring in the slightest that Loki hadn't had any positive thoughts left.

"Loki. You awake?"

"No."

"Why did you stop?"

"Hm?"

"Writing."

Loki took his arm away from his eyes and looked at the ceiling, thinking. "I'm not sure," he said. "I was always good at telling stories, and I used to be writing them down all the time, when I was - younger. I'm not good at it anymore."

"It's not like I'm the best judge when it comes to this," Tony said, "but maybe you just need to get started again? Might be nice to get out of your head for a while, write everything down."

"Yes, it might be," Loki agreed noncommittally.

"It'd certainly be better than selling bad muffins."

"Everything would be better than selling bad muffins." 

Tony laughed quietly. "Yeah, I guess."

Loki made himself look at him. "You were an academic, then."

"Huh?"

"Articles and dissertations, you said."

"Oh. Yeah." Tony huffed, grinning crookedly. "An academic. You could say that."

Loki wanted to ask what he had done for a living, but that grin distracted him. It rang a bell, reminded him of something he'd seen before. He frowned, chasing the thought, but couldn't put his finger on it.

"What is it?" Tony asked, his brow raised. Still grinning.

"You look familiar," Loki said, thoughtful. "When you smile like that."

"Do I?"

Loki sat up with another sigh. "I think I'll take a shower."

"Now that's the best idea you've had all day. You want me to try and make tea?"

"No."

"But it almost worked last week!"

"I needed to buy a new kettle."

"I bet I could -"

_"No."_

"You're no fun."

~

Loki had the revelation during his first and only break at work. He was sitting in the backroom, eating a donut that hadn't been sold yesterday, and aimlessly scrolled through the news on his phone. 

In the end, it was a mere coincidence. If Amora hadn't been there this day, Loki couldn't have taken a break, and if he hadn’t forgotten his book at home, he wouldn’t have been on his phone, and if a random journalist hadn’t decided to publish an article about a guy who had gone missing more than twenty years ago on this exact day, Loki wouldn’t have seen it.

As it was, Amora was there, and Loki was on his phone, and he saw the article. At first, the headline didn’t even register, he had to do a double-take, and then he stopped eating, the donut just inches away from his mouth.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF TONY STARK - WHAT HAPPENED TO THE HEIR OF STARK INDUSTRIES?

“Oh,” Loki said.

~

When he came home later that day, Tony was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t show himself all day, so Loki had more than enough time to do some research. Well, a _lot_ of research, because finding information about the ghost that lived in his attic was goddamn easy suddenly, given that it was one of the most famous - and still unsolved - cases of the last century.

Tony Stark.

Loki had seen his face before, on the news. He’d disappeared a few years before Loki had even been born, in early 1994 - three years after his parents had died, and just a few months before he should have officially taken over the multimillion dollar company his father had built up from nothing. And sometimes people still talked about him; he’d become one of those urban legends everybody in New York knew about. There had been a new lead a few years ago, Loki remembered, but nothing had come of it. And even though he had been gone for so long now, he still hadn’t been declared dead. Most people seemed to think that he’d just ran away on his own volition, because apparently it had been a well-known secret that he and his father hadn’t gotten along very well, and that Tony Stark hadn’t actually _wanted_ to take over the company, which was also the reason why he hadn’t done it right after he had turned twenty-one.

And now, there Loki was, sitting in the small apartment he shared with the ghost of a man that might or might not have shot himself in the attic.

~

The next time he saw Tony, he looked just like he always did, the same messy hair and the same sheepish grin that was always on his face when he’d been gone for a few days. He stood next to the sofa, flickering slightly as always, and Loki thought - _god, that_ is _Tony Stark._ In most pictures Loki had seen online, Tony had been wearing suits and designer clothes that looked more expensive than Loki’s entire wardrobe, and his hair had been styled in that artfully messy way that wasn’t _actually_ messy. The Tony Loki knew always wore the same washed out jeans and the same t-shirt of a band Loki didn’t enjoy listening to, and his hair was just messy, not artlessly so, even though that didn’t make him less nice to look at.

But, yes. He definitely was Tony Stark.

“Hi,” Tony said, brightly, as if seeing Loki again was the highlight of his questionable existence. “What day is it?”

“Friday,” Loki answered. “You’ve been gone for five days.”

“Oh. Oops." He sat down on the sofa - meaning, he vanished for a second and then appeared on the sofa, his see-through feet on the sofa table. "You're not in bed, that's good."

Loki ignored that. He set his book aside and turned toward Tony, putting his arm on the backrest of the sofa. Tony's grin faded.

"Uh oh," he said. "I don't like that face. It looks like a _I'm gonna say something you don't want to hear_ face. Can't we just skip that part where you say it and go right to the -"

"I know who you are."

Tony disappeared, and Loki sighed and waited - three seconds, then five, then ten, until Tony flickered back into the view again. He was frowning at Loki, not seeming very pleased.

"I figured you'd find out eventually," he said, sounding like he was _trying_ to sound cheerful and just couldn't manage. "I'm surprised it took you so long, really."

"I think I lost track of the mystery at hand," Loki said, smiling slightly. “In favor of talking to the mystery itself.”

“Yeah, right.”

He didn’t sound very happy. Loki hesitated, wondering what to say now. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Tony snorted and looked away, down at his hands. They were just as see-through as his feet. “It’s not important.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause I’m just another ghost,” Tony said and looked at Loki again, lips forming a lopsided smile. “There are dozens of us in just this street. Millions in New York. And who we were when we were still alive - well, what does it matter? It doesn’t change anything. I’m just this now. I’ll never be anything else again.”

Something about that made Loki’s throat close up. He swallowed, couldn’t stand looking at Tony’s smile. “I see.”

“You really don’t, but that’s okay. Hey, can you make coffee?”

“Why?”

“I wanna smell it.”

Loki got up from the sofa and made coffee.

~

Blankets, Loki thought, were one of the best inventions humanity had ever made. There was nothing better than wrapping himself up in one and sipping tea while watching episode after episode of a series he had stopped being interested in after twenty-two minutes.

“This show sucks.”

Loki hummed. He didn’t turn his head to look at Tony, who had shown up right next to him on the sofa.

“Loki.”

“Mh hm.”

“It’s 3am. Why aren’t you asleep?”

“I can’t sleep.”

A pause, then, “You slept for like seventeen hours every day last week..”

“Exactly,” Loki said, eyes fixed on the laptop screen. “Last week.” He curled his fingers tighter around his half empty cup. “I go from wanting to sleep all day to being unable to close my eyes. It’s normal.”

“Yeah, pretty sure it isn’t,” Tony said with a sigh. “You have work in the morning.”

Loki wrinkled his nose. “Yes, I don’t think I’ll go.”

“You didn’t go yesterday, either.”

“No lecture, please, or I’ll call an exorcist.”

Tony huffed. “I’m a ghost, not a demon. Can I try something?”

“As long as it doesn’t involve another blackout.”

“It doesn’t,” Tony assured him. “I mean, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.”

Loki sighed and put the cup on the sofa table, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Whenever Tony wanted to try something, it _definitely_ involved a blackout. Or damage to one of Loki’s few belongings. But Loki couldn’t bring himself to care about that right now, because he was tired and sad and they would fire him and then he wouldn’t have any money at all until he found another job that would probably be even worse and then - oh.

Loki opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. “What are you doing?”

“You feel that?”

“I do,” Loki said, still adjusting to the feeling of fingers carding through his hair. He couldn’t remember the last time somebody had touched him like this. Or at all.

“Is it okay?” Tony said, his voice quiet but excited. “I haven’t touched anyone in - yeah, ages. I’ve never tried, but I thought maybe… Anyway, if you want me to stop -”

“No.” Loki closed his eyes again. Tony’s hand was so cold that the touch of his fingertips against Loki’s scalp almost made him shiver, but it was still nice. Pleasant. “It’s alright.”

“Yeah? Okay then, c’mere. We’re gonna try the next level.”

The hand disappeared but returned quickly; now it was on Loki’s shoulder, pulling him close. Loki complied, and soon his head was resting on Tony’s shoulder. It was cold like his hands, but surprisingly, blissfully solid - actually _there._

“I’m not sure how long I can keep this up,” Tony murmured, fingertips drawing circles on Loki’s shoulder. “It’s - straining.”

“A few minutes,” Loki said, burying his face in the crook of Tony’s neck. He didn’t smell like anything. “Please.”

“Okay.” Tony squeezed Loki’s shoulder. “Rest a bit, alright?”

“Just don’t disappear without a warning,” Loki muttered back, his voice soft; god, he _craved_ this. It was embarrassing, but right now he couldn’t care about that, either.

“I won’t,” Tony said. “Promise.”

~

From there on, touches were a reoccurring thing. Tony couldn’t always do it; sometimes he didn’t have enough energy, then his hand would just go straight through Loki, a cool breeze that left him shivering. But Tony got better at it as time passed, and as it turned out, he was - had been - a person who _liked_ touching people. A cold hand on Loki’s lower back, the brush of fingertips against his arm or hand, and often fingers playing with his hair when they were sitting on the sofa. And it was weird, it was, and maybe it should have been creepy, and scary, but Loki wasn’t scared. It was nice, this shift from having a ghostly roommate to talk to to having a ghostly roommate Loki could _touch._ Somehow, it made Tony more real. Perhaps that was the exact opposite of what Loki should have wanted, given that a ghost wasn’t, couldn’t be a substitute for actual human interaction, but really, who was Loki to decide that being with Tony _wasn’t_ human interaction? People didn’t stop being human when they died - actually, when Loki was with Tony, he thought that their humanity might be the only thing some people left behind.

Tony was good company. He was charming and witty and _kind,_ and Loki saw no reason to stop talking to him or to move out. He had never met someone he could talk to for hours without getting bored, but Tony somehow made that possible. And yes, fine, he was dead, but - well, nobody’s perfect. Loki didn’t forget it, not even once, but he could look past it, because he was ready to admit, even if just to himself, that he was in _desperate_ need for a friend. And Tony was, too.

Loki managed to keep his work in the café, solely because they hadn’t found someone to replace him yet, and so he dragged himself to work and saved what little money he could save, thinking that maybe, one day, he could go somewhere else. But until then, everything would stay as it was, and Loki tried not to feel even more tired because of it. The numbness came and went, along with the sadness and the exhaustion and the wish to never do anything again, but Loki was used to that, and he tried to let it pass him by. Tony worried, more than a ghost should be able to; Loki knew that even though Tony never said it out loud. Loki could tell by the way Tony looked at him sometimes, and by that soft tone of voice he used now and then when he talked to Loki, only when Loki was half asleep and Tony could be sure that he could get away with it.

Loki would never admit it allowed, but a part of him enjoyed that Tony was concerned. Probably because it was the kind of concern that was sincere and free of judgement, unlike what Loki's family had passed off as concern, saying things like we're _worried about you_ in the same breath as _you can't keep doing this to us._ There was a difference there, a very important one, and all in all it was just one of the many reasons why Loki had grown fonder of Tony than he had planned.

He couldn't help it, though. Not when Tony looked like this, grinning like it was the best day of his life, bright eyes flickering over the screen while his fingers worked on the keyboard more quickly than Loki had ever seen.

"I've been trying to actually use this for _months,"_ Tony said under his breath, giddiness coloring his voice.

"I noticed," Loki said dryly. "You almost broke it that one time."

"Yeah, but I fixed it, didn't I? God, _look at this._ It's brilliant. How many articles are on here?"

Loki looked at him for a moment, chewing on a forkful of mac and cheese. "On Wikipedia?"

"Yeah."

"I have no idea. A lot. There's one about you, I'm sure."

"I know, I'm looking at it. Wait, there's a documentation about me? On Netflix?"

"Yes. I watched it when you were gone the last time. It's horrible."

"Aw."

"We can watch it, if you'd like."

"No, I -" Tony paused, looking at the screen. "Obadiah Stane is still the CEO of SI?"

"I think so."

"Great. Oh my god, here's Justin Hammer. He looks so old. My page is longer than his, that's amazing."

Loki agreed with a hum. It was a little sad, watching _Tony Stark_ being fascinated by something as widely known as Wikipedia. But it made sense, of course; he had died in 1994, and even though he had come to know some scraps of knowledge about what was going on in the world, he knew frighteningly little. Loki felt like that was what bothered Tony the most, that he was so… left out. From what Loki had read about how Tony had been when he had still been alive, he'd been a workaholic, a genius, an _inventor._ Not being able to do that had to sting more than anything else. It made Loki wonder how the world would look like if Tony hadn't died - sure, he had created weapons, but not _only_ weapons, and with a mind like his, maybe technology would have gotten much further in the last twenty years than it had gotten without him.

"Ah, shit."

Pulled out of his thoughts, Loki focused on Tony again and saw that his fingers were now tapping fruitlessly, fading as they moved through the keyboard.

"I guess my time's over," Tony said with a sigh. He shook his hands. "Sometimes I just lose it."

"Take a break," Loki suggested. "The laptop won't go anywhere. I can give you my phone, too, but only if you promise not to -"

As if on cue, the screen of his phone lit up with an incoming call. Loki groaned and bent forward, grabbing it from the sofa table. He glanced at the screen, then picked up.

"Yes?"

"Hello. Look, uh - I haven't heard from you in a while, and I just wanted to know how things are going?"

"Thank you, Mr. Rhodes," Loki said, looking at Tony, who had perked up at the name just like Loki had known he would. "That's very considerate of you, but I assure you, I'm fine."

"No more blackouts and stuff? Or -"

"Blackouts do still happen every once in a while," Loki cut him off, grinning when Tony made an apologetic face that didn't seem very sincere. "But it's all under control."

"Tell him hi," Tony said. He'd already moved closer to Loki on the sofa. "I don't think he can hear me, especially not on the phone."

"Tony says hi," Loki said, putting Rhodes on speakerphone.

On the other end of the line, it was quiet for a while. Finally, Rhodes asked, "You can talk to him?"

"And see him," Loki added. "And touch him, on occasion."

"Touch him? But how does that -"

"Please, don't ask me. I don't fully understand it, either. It's -"

"Tell him I'm fine," Tony said. "Loki. Please tell him I'm fine."

Loki looked at him, frowning. The room had gotten colder, and he was sure that he didn't just imagine that the lights were flickering softly.

"Mr. Burson? Are you -"

"I'm still here," Loki said. "He can hear you, but it seems like you can't hear him. He wants me to tell you that he's fine."

"God, Tony," Rhodes muttered. "I -"

He stopped, and Tony snorted. "Tell him if he cries, I'm gonna find a way to come and haunt him. Also he's gotten old as fuck, it's embarrassing."

"I'm not going to insult him," Loki said.

"Is he insulting me?" Rhodes asked.

"He thinks you're old."

"Shit, I _am_ old."

"See?" Tony said. "He doesn't mind. Call him platypus."

"Why _on Earth_ should I call him platypus?"

Rhodes started to laugh, and maybe, just maybe, he did cry a little.

When Loki put his phone away after some time, Tony had gotten quiet. The lights were still flickering, and Loki had to draw the blanket tighter around himself.

"Tony," he said. "You'll break the light bulb."

"I know," Tony said, not looking at Loki. "I can't stop."

Loki frowned. "Are you getting stuck?"

"No, I just -" Now Tony himself started to flicker, although just faintly. "He's the best friend I've ever had, you know. I miss him."

Loki automatically reached out to put his hand on Tony's shoulder, wanting to give him what little comfort Loki was capable of giving, but all he felt was cold air. 

Tony huffed out a wet laugh. "God, this - this sucks. I wish -"

"Yes?"

"Nothing," Tony said. "Doesn't matter."

"He said he will visit as soon as he can," Loki reminded him, as gently as he could. "You can -"

"He won't be able to _see me,_ Loki," Tony said and for the first time since Loki had heard his voice, Tony's tone was sharp. "He won't even hear me. Don't you think I've tried talking to him after -"

The light bulb blew.

Tony sighed, frustrated. "Sorry."

"It's alright," Loki said. "In wise foresight, I bought them by the dozen last month. They were on sale."

Tony snorted and rubbed his eyes. He disappeared for a moment, then showed up again sitting on Loki's other side. "Sorry, I - I can't concentrate."

"Stop apologizing, it's getting on my nerves."

"I did try."

Loki sent him a questioning look and reached for his plate again, set on finishing his dinner even though it had gotten cold by now.

"To talk to him," Tony explained. "But in the beginning, I was…" He shook his head. "I couldn't communicate, at all. But time went by and I got better, and eventually I could - well, move stuff _intentionally,_ not just by accident. And Rhodey's aunt, she'd already suspected something was up, because of all the noises I'd make when I was stuck, you know?"

"Yes, I'm familiar with them," Loki deadpanned, remembering all the nights he'd been woken up by steps and, in _very_ bad nights, shots.

"I managed to talk to her," Tony said, lost in either thought or memories. "Just once or twice, and she never heard more than a sentence, but that was enough. I'd lived with her for a few weeks, she recognized me, and she was - scared shitless, probably, but she called Rhodey nonetheless. But he never saw or heard a thing." He shrugged. "I mean, he gets the chills every once in a while, and of course he notices the blackouts and everything, but he doesn't - he doesn't notice _me."_

"It's difficult not to notice you," Loki said slowly.

"I don't get it, either. Some people just aren't… made for it, I guess." Tony looked at Loki for the first time in a while. "And then there's people like Rhodey's aunt, who notice a little, and people like you, who notice pretty much everything I want you to notice and more."

Loki raised a brow. "Are you calling me special?"

"Yeah," Tony said, laughing. "Yeah, I think I am. I already told you, it's - it's so much easier with you."

"Maybe you are just much better at it by now."

"Or maybe you're a medium."

"I am not a medium," Loki stated and stood up to carry his plate to the kitchen.

"Either way," Tony said, "thanks. For being here."

"This _is_ my apartment, you know."

"Yeah," Tony said, smiling. "I know."

Loki put the plate in the sink and then went to change the light bulb.

~

"Do you think it's me?" Tony asked, just once.

"Hm?"

"Do you feel so bad because of me?"

"Where did you get that idea?"

"I don't know. Horror movies?"

Loki sighed and closed his eyes, fully intending to keep sleeping. "I'm depressed," he muttered. "I was already depressed before I met you."

"But it's worse than when you moved in."

"It has nothing to do with you."

Tony didn't say anything else, but he stayed at Loki's side all night.

~

Familiar noises woke Loki up. He groaned and rolled into his other side, pinching his eyes shut. He tried to ignore the sounds, but he wasn't very good at that, and so, after a short while, he dragged himself out of bed and left the bedroom.

There was still a hole in the ceiling from when he had broken the hatch with the hammer. Loki hadn’t bothered to do anything about it, instead he had taken to just ignoring it. He hadn’t been in the attic since he and Tony had started talking; every time he had heard the steps coming from upstairs, Loki had just waited until they had stopped, because according to Tony, every attempt to get through to him when he was stuck was pointless. Tonight, though, Loki had finally been able to sleep after a week of insomnia, and he did not have the patience to lie around in bed for an hour until Tony stopped freaking out. He figured that it was at least worth the try; it wasn't like Tony had any actual _knowledge_ about these things, he simply made it up as he went.

So Loki grabbed a chair and placed it under the hatch so that he could grab the edge and pull himself up, blocking out the constant sounds of steps above him. A complaint was already sitting on his tongue, but it died as soon as he saw what was going on in the attic.

There was Tony, pacing in front of the bed, making a few steps before disappearing in one spot and showing up again in another. Once, Loki saw him sitting on the bed instead, hunched over and scribbling something on a notepad, while the image of his body shook and shifted as if he was nothing more than a dysfunctioning hologram. It was ice cold in the big room, cold enough that Loki could see his own breath coloring the air, and at first, all he could do was stare. Tony looked like he was completely out of it, an expression of sheer terror on his face, wide eyes scanning the room without seeing anything. His mouth was moving, but Loki couldn't hear him say anything; all he heard was the creaking of the floorboards under Tony's almost transparent feet, and something else that sounded like static, like the crackling of electricity in the air. The attic itself seemed to be flickering, flashes of cold light illuminating the room in irregular intervals, and now and then Loki believed that he could see splashes of color in between the flashes. For the fragment of a second, the bed didn't look half as old and dusty as it actually was, the bedding a bright blue, and then the shoes and the bag that had once belonged to Tony seemed to be new and unaffected by all the time that had passed.

Tony stopped walking back and forth, now frozen in place, and stared at something in Loki's direction that wasn't actually _there,_ and he raised his hands and took a step back before fading completely, just for a second. When he appeared again, the fear on his face had been replaced by anger, and then -

A shot, so loud that Loki flinched, hands coming up to cover his ears. Tony vanished in the exact same second, and all Loki could look at a pool of something deep red on the floor in front of the bed, glistening as if it was still wet.

And then, silence. Loki was breathing raggedly even though he had barely moved an inch, and he stayed cowering near the hatch for what had to be an eternity. He swallowed thickly around the lump in his throat.

"Tony?" he asked, careful, voice quivering.

Another flash of light, and then there Tony was, pacing again. Then he was on the bed and then he was moving again and stopped and then there was another shot, and then it all started again.

Loki couldn't move. He could just sit there and watch. For the first time in ages he actually saw Tony as what he was - a ghost. Something that shouldn't have been left behind but was still here, something strange and otherworldly and terrifying. Something that had gotten stuck. 

It took more than an hour until Tony vanished for the last time.

~

Loki opened the fridge with trembling hands. He stared into it, wondering what the hell he was even doing. He was still quivering, still feeling so cold as if he'd just crawled out of ice water.

"So, what are you doing up?"

Loki closed his eyes for a second. It taken him another thirty minutes until he had calmed down enough to leave the attic, and apparently that was just the amount of time Tony had needed to come back to himself. Whatever that meant, exactly.

"Loki?"

"You were stuck," Loki said, speaking slowly to keep himself from stumbling over the words. He finally reached for a bottle of juice. "Upstairs."

"Oh," Tony said, quietly. "Did you -"

"Yes."

"I told you not to."

"I was tired." Loki closed the fridge and looked at Tony, who was… the same as always. Completely different from what Loki had seen thirty minutes ago. "I wasn't thinking."

Tony just stared at him.

"You didn't tell me _what_ you get stuck in," Loki said, trying his best to stay calm. "You didn't say -"

"It doesn't -"

"It _does_ matter," Loki snapped. "It - god, I thought you shot yourself."

Tony didn't move, and he didn't look away. "I didn't."

"No," Loki said. He opened the fridge again to put the bottle back. "No, you didn't."

"Everybody thinks I did," Tony said. "Everybody meaning - Rhodey, his aunt, the police. I disappeared in LA, hitchhiked all the way to New York. And I carried a fake ID, only Rhodey knew who I really was. The police here, they never connected the dots. They thought I was just another -" He cut himself off. A long pause, then he added, “I don’t know how he found me. He'd already tried to kill me once, and chased me through the whole country. He had thought everything through, even made me write a note. Said he'd get to Rhodey if I didn't."

Loki looked at him, teeth clenched. "What did you write?"

"That I didn't want Rhodey to tell anyone that it was me. That I just - that I just wanted everything to stop."

"But that wasn't true."

Tony shook his head.

There was only one question left, really. “Who was it?”

“Obadiah Stane.”

“Alright,” Loki said. His thoughts were racing. He didn’t even look at Tony when he walked through the living room toward the bedroom door.

“Loki?”

“I will go to the police tomorrow,” Loki interrupted him. “I will tell them -”

Tony made him stop walking by appearing right in front of Loki, his arms crossed. “What, that the ghost of Tony Stark told you he was killed? Come on, Lokes, you’re not that stupid. Do you want them to commit you?”

“It’s not fair,” Loki said through gritted teeth. “It’s not -”

“Of course it’s not fair! Nothing’s fucking fair. But it’s how it is, and there’s nothing you can do.”

“Tony -”

“No,” Tony said, then tapped his own chest. “My death. My decision.”

Loki stared at him for a moment longer, then he walked past Tony into the bedroom without saying another word.

~

Naturally, he didn’t fall asleep again. Instead, he lay around in bed for hours, useless as always, and listened to his thoughts while they went and went and went round in circles. The sun had just started to rise when Tony appeared on the bed next to Loki, lying on his back, looking at the ceiling. He didn’t say anything, and for the longest time, Loki stayed silent as well.

“I wish you were alive,” he said then, his voice quiet and hoarse.

Tony snorted and turned his head, eyes crinkling slightly when he smiled. “I’d be forty-eight. You wouldn’t be into me.”

“I’m into you now,” Loki said, “and you’re dead. It’s safe to say that my standards are very low.”

Tony’s smile faded, but he didn’t say anything at first. Then, “You deserve the very best this world can offer you, you know. And this? Me? Not the best. The literal opposite of the best. I’m not even really here.”

“You _are,”_ Loki said and reached out, grasping Tony’s hand. It only worked because Tony let him. “You are.”

Tony sighed, but squeezed Loki’s hand. “You can’t stay here forever. That would break my fucking heart.”

Loki averted his eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to let go of Tony’s hand. Touching a ghost shouldn’t have felt this real. “What if I followed you?”

It took less than two seconds until Tony understood what he meant. “No.”

“It would be -”

“I said no.”

“My life,” Loki said. “My decision.”

Tony disentangled their fingers and sat up, looking down at Loki with an expression that was similar to the one he had worn up in the attic a few hours ago. “I could disappear every day, you know. Before you came, I spent the better part of my time drifting. Some day, I’ll fade, and you’d be alone.”

“I would fade eventually, too.”

“It’s not _worth_ it, Loki. Do you know what I’d give to come back?” He let out a bitter laugh and looked away, shaking his head. “To be actually _here?”_

Loki sat up as well, but didn’t reach for Tony’s hand again. “What would you do? If you were here.”

Tony stayed quiet for a long time, looking down at his lap. “I’d leave this goddamn house,” he said eventually. “I’d go to the next store and get my hands on every piece of tech that was invented in the last twenty years, and I’d bring everything to my workshop and take it apart. I’d go for a run in Central Park. Check out all the new restaurants, go to a concert of a band I’ve never heard of. I’d steal the most gorgeous car I can find and make a road trip, and you could kick and scream all you wanted, but I’d take you with me.” He stopped and looked at Loki again, more serious than Loki had ever seen him. “But none of that matters. What do _you_ want?”

Loki leaned forward and pressed his lips to Tony’s - tried to, anyway. There was nothing at first, only cool air, but then Loki could feel Tony’s mouth on his, gentle and cold, making Loki shiver. A hand on his chest pushed him back.

“That doesn’t count,” Tony said, mouth twitching into a smirk. _“I_ don’t count.”

“I say that you do.”

“Raise your standards,” Tony told him. “Loki, there’s - _so much_ out there, for you.”

“Is there?” 

“Shit, yeah. You know - life.”

Loki arched a brow. “I haven’t been very good at living recently.”

“You don’t have to be,” Tony said. “You don’t - you don’t have to do anything extraordinary. You don’t have to take over your dad’s firm, you don’t have to write a fucking bestseller. Just - stop selling muffins if that’s not what you want. Talk to a therapist, get better, adopt a damn cat or something. Find something that’s worth living for, something that’s more than just the memory of a guy who got shot in your attic.”

“You’re everything I have.”

“No, I’m not. You have a brother who calls you every day even though you never answer his calls. You have a brilliant mind and lots and lots of brilliant ideas, you’ve got a talent and a _love_ for telling stories. And you have time, Loki, and _options_. Hundreds, thousands of them. Don’t throw it all away.”

“But you -”

“I’m _dead,_ sweetheart,” Tony said, gently. “There’s nothing here for you.” He paused. “Well, there’s the stash of money I hid upstairs. Obadiah didn’t find it, you can have it. You could go on that road trip on your own.”

“Obadiah.” Loki frowned. “I should look for a way to -”

 _“Forget_ about Obadiah. Let him have the company, eventually they’ll get him for tax fraud or something. It doesn’t matter.”

“How can you say that?” Loki asked, staring at him. “How can you -”

“I told you,” Tony said. “I told you, I’m just another ghost. It’s alright.”

“It’s not.”

“Do you want that money now or not?”

Loki thought about it for several minutes. Finally, he said, "Maybe."

**2019**

Two cold hands on his shoulders. The phantom sensation of a chin resting on the top of his head, not completely solid, but almost.

"What are you doing?"

"Writing."

"About what?"

"You'll see."

Tony moved behind him, looking over his shoulder to squint at the laptop screen. "Loki, is that a _ghost story?"_

"Tony."

"It has the word 'ghost' in it. Right there."

"Congratulations, you can read. Now would you please be quiet? I need to concentrate."

"Sorry, sweetheart."

**2020**

Colonel James Rhodes was a tall man, dark-skinned and kind-looking even though he carried himself like a soldier. There were laugh lines around his eyes, and streaks of gray at his temples.

"So you're actually leaving, huh?" he asked, watching as Loki took on his jacket.

"Yes," Loki said. "I am. My brother is waiting downstairs, he'll take me to the airport."

"Where are you going?"

"Europe. For research."

Rhodes smirked. "Lots of ghost stories there, I've heard."

Loki doubted that any of them was as good as the one he'd experienced himself, but he still smiled back. "Yes, exactly."

"When your book is finished, I want a signed copy, you hear me?"

"Of course." Loki grabbed his backpack and threw it over his shoulder. "The keys -"

"Keep them," Rhodes said. "Maybe you'll come back one day." He raised a brow. "Are those Tony's shoes?"

Loki looked down at the sneakers he had tied to his backpack. "Oh, yes. He said I could take them."

Rhodes smiled. "Okay."

Outside on the street, Thor honked. Loki sighed. "Well, I'll better go."

"Be in touch, okay?"

Loki nodded and opened the door, but then he paused. "There is a floppy disc upstairs," he said carefully. "In one of the boxes in the attic. There is some information about Obadiah Stane on it that could be… of use."

Rhodes looked at him, thoughtful. "Of use?"

"Yes. And don't let him keep you from using it. He has gotten weaker in the last months, but he hasn't unlearned how to be a nuisance."

"Yeah, he'll never unlearn that," Rhodes said, and Loki smiled.

He said goodbye, both out loud and silently, and left the apartment.


End file.
